Eder Izaguirre

Research Interests

I work on theoretical particle physics. Lately my research has focused on two parallel efforts. First, on devising ideas to search for light Dark Matter at new fixed-target electron beam experiments. With collaborators I have proposed both beam-dump and active-target missing momentum experiments. The former led to the BDX collaboration, for which I'm a spokesperson. Conventional searches such as missing energy searches at the LHC, direct detection experiments underground, and indirect probes with gamma ray telescopes are poised to thoroughly explore the simplest models of DM with masses greater than a GeV. Sub-GeV-scale DM remains one of the blind spots of existing strategies to look for DM. The two approaches my work has focused on seek to sharply test the simplest models of thermal-relic light DM with masses below a GeV.

Second, I've also devoted my efforts to various questions in LHC phenomenology. By any measure, Run 1 of the LHC was a remarkable success. The Higgs particle, the missing piece of the Standard Model (SM), was discovered after a decades-long hunt. Our clearer understanding of the SM only amplifies the fact that for all its successes, the SM remains incomplete. My research on LHC phenomenology seeks to uncover some of these missing pieces. My work has focused on connections to DM at colliders, motivated by hints from astrophysics; beyond the Standard Model signatures that escape conventional searches, such as right handed neutrinos and DM; new experiments at the LHC to search for weakly-coupled particles; and on techniques for improving precision measurements at the LHC as a window to beyond the SM physics.